Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 55
completed. No better contrast could be found between the old ideas of formal
language work, dominated by books and cast into forms not understood or at
least not natural to the youth, and the newer ideas of simplicity, directness, and
forcefulness in presenting the account of one's own experience. Not only was
this contrast an illustration of the ideal of the entire education offered at
Tuskegee in opposition to that of the old, formal, 'literary' education as imposed
upon the colored race, but it gave in a nutshell a concept of the new education.
This one experience drawn from the life of the boy and related directly to his
life's duration and circumstances was education in the truest sense; the other was
not save as Mr. Washington made it so in its failure. . . .'
Among the delegates was also Mr. A. L. Rafter, the Assistant Superintendent of
Schools of Boston, who in speaking at Tuskegee said: "What Tuskegee is doing
for you we are going to take on home to the North. You are doing what we are
talking about." In general, these foremost educational experts of the dominant
race looked to Booker Washington and Tuskegee for leadership instead of
expecting him or his school to follow them.
Booker Washington not only practised at Tuskegee this close relation between
school life and real life--and it is being continued now that he is gone--but
preached it whenever and wherever opportunity offered. Some years ago, in
addressing himself to those of his own students who expected to become
teachers, he said on this subject among
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other things: ". . . colored parents depend upon seeing the results of education in
ways not true of the white parent. It is important that the colored teacher on this
account give special attention to bringing school life into closer touch with real
life. Any education is to my mind 'high' which enables the individual to do the
very best work for the people by whom he is surrounded. Any education is 'low'
which does not make for character and effective service.
"The average teacher in the public schools is very likely to yield to the
temptation of thinking that he is educating an individual when he is teaching
him to reason out examples in arithmetic, to prove propositions in geometry,
and to recite pages of history. He conceives this to be the end of education.
Herein is the sad deficiency in many teachers who are not able to use history,
arithmetic, and geometry as means to an end. They get the idea that the student
who has mastered a certain number of pages in a textbook is educated,
24.03.2006